Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[jscherb]

Not for me but if you are flexible and taller than I am (5'10") it will probably work fine. Probably works for the younger crowd as well who are still limber. Oh I don't know why you did not use the other set of shows to paste that would have made people do a double take

Well if you wear shoes like the ones in the image below no wonder you have problems with the ladder and storing your shoes .

I'll make one of these shoe caddys next week and I'll let you know if I have trouble using it.

 

[jscherb]

I decided I needed a Grab & Go tool bag so I sewed one, I finished the last details this morning. It's got both a Grab & Go clip and Molle straps on the back so I can use it pretty much anywhere. Did this one in olive drab.

On this inside it's got tool holders that unfold...

Video showing how it unfolds...

 

[14JKURX]

I like it!
Where do I send my money.

 

[jscherb]

I like it!
Where do I send my money.

Thanks .

Really I did the tool bag just for myself - I wanted a compact and organized way to carry a set of tools that I commonly find useful.

I will share the tool bag design with Overland Outfitters and if they like it they're free to put it in production, it's up to them. I just design this stuff, I'm not part of any of the companies that pick up my designs.

Another design I've been thinking about - at Overland East a woman came up to me when I was listening in at the Overland Outfitters booth and said she really liked the interior of the First Aid bag - she liked how it could organize the "girl things" she wanted to carry - cosmetics and other more private things she wanted to be able to carry from the Jeep to the nearest camp restroom or shower. We discussed a few differences between the First Aid supplies and the supplies she'd want to carry and I told her if she sent me a list of supplies I would take a shot at designing a "Camper Girl Bag" just for those supplies. I gave her my card but haven't heard back from her yet.

Related news... yesterday I got an email from Overland Outfitters telling me that Quadratec has signed up for many of their products and that some of them are on the QT site already: https://www.quadratec.com/search/overland outfitters. Big congrats to the women of Overland Outfitters (it's a women owned and operated company).

 

[jscherb]

A few days ago I posted an idea for a roof top tent shoe caddy. In that post I said that a home door-hung shoe organizer that you might find at Walmart could easily be adapted to this use. I went to Walmart and looked at them and the definitely would be easy to adapt, but the pockets were a little small for my size 12 shoes so I decided I'd better sew one from scratch.

The awning rope I ordered to implement the changing room under the tent hasn't arrived yet, so this isn't finished. When it arrives Monday I'll sew a short length of the awning rope to the top edge so it can slip into the channel on the underside of the tent base. Photos to come then.

BTW I only made this for two shoes, I figured if I made it with 4 pockets it might be hard to reach the outer pockets while sitting in the tent opening so if this works well I'll make another two-pocket one that can slide in on the other side of the ladder, that way both should be within easy reach.

 

[jscherb]

I like it!
Where do I send my money.

After your post I sent Overland Outfitters some photos of the tool bag and this is the response I got:

I like it, great idea!

This bag can accommodate lot of tools yet so compact, amazing...

They didn't say they wanted to do it but they did tell me that their manufacturing capacity is fully booked right now working on Quadratec's requirements so maybe they'll pick up the tool bag once that settles down.

In about a week I'll be leaving on a road trip to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas so the tool bag will get a good test in the Jeep.

 

[jscherb]

The Sailrite order arrived late yesterday so I finished up the shoe caddy by sewing a small length of awning rope to the top edge.

The RTT isn't on the Jeep right now, it's leaning up against a workbench in the garage, but these next photos should explain how the caddy will install.

There's a channel on the bottom edge of my RTT (and on many other RTTs) which accepts the awning rope:

The caddy gets slid along the channel until it's next to the ladder. Because the RTT is standing up vertically, the ladder and the shoe caddy are both laying against the bottom of the tent platform, but both will hang down when the tent is on the Jeep.

I've got to put the RTT on the Jeep in about a week for the trip to the SEMA Show, so I'll post photos of the shoe caddy hanging down on the installed tent then.

Question for those of you with RTTs - does yours have the same channel on the bottom that mine does? I think a lot do, but I'm curious to know how many other RTTs this idea works for.

 

[jscherb]

From time to time companies contact me and ask if I'd be interested in testing/reviewing their products. Often I say no but if they have a product I'm interested in sometimes I agree and they send me one or more to test. A few weeks ago Auxbeam (an LED lighting company) sent me an email with four new products in it. I wasn't interested in three of the products (rock lights were one of the other products in the email for example) but I have been looking for a good flashlight to keep in the Jeep and that was one of the products in the email I agreed to give the flashlight a try. It arrived the other day.

This is the product, they call it an LED Tactical Flashlight. It's advertised to have 2000 lumens so it should be pretty bright. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07WLQ583R

It's all-aluminum, very sturdy and has a focusing ring that provides a wide or narrow beam.

When it arrived I was disappointed to see it doesn't come with batteries. I asked the company about that and they said these flashlights ship to the US via air freight and lithium batteries aren't allowed in those shipments. The flashlight requires 2 18650 batteries so on eBay I found a listing with 4 batteries plus a USB charger for about $10.00 with free shipping and I ordered that. Here's the charger and two of the batteries, the other two batteries are in the flashlight:

Since 2000 lumens is roughly twice the brightness of a standard low beam headlight (700-1200 lumens), I decided to compare the flashlight to the Jeep's headlights. In these shots against the garage door the headlights and the flashlight are 28 feet from the garage doors. My Nikon DSLR is on a tripod at the same distance and it is set to manual mode to accurately capture the brighnesss - the camera will not be compensating aperture or shutter speed based on the brightness so the photos will be an accurate comparison.

Top left: just the Jeep headlights

Top right: Jeep headlights on, flashlight full wide focus centered on the left garage door.

Bottom right: Jeep headlights on, flashlight focus zoomed to just the garage door. The flashlight is at least as bright as the combination of the two headlights, so based on this I find the 2000 lumen rating of the flashlight believable.

Bottom left: Just the flashlight wide focus

The widest lighting angle is very wide. These next photos were taken in a spare bedroom using my cell phone camera with no flash.

Left: Just a bedside lamp.

Center: Bedside lamp plus flashlight.

Right: Just the flashlight.

I'm very impressed with this flashlight. It's incredibly bright and quite compact. It would be nice if it came with batteries, but that's not a big deal since 18650 batteries and chargers of many types are inexpensive and easily available online so you can buy a charger that suits your needs - for my needs two sets of batteries and a USB charger was the right choice so that's what I bought.

 

[jscherb]

The reason I bought a USB charger for the flashlight batteries is so the charger can easily be used in the Jeep. What I'm thinking of doing is sewing a holder for both the flashlight and the charger, perhaps something like this:

The charger goes in a pocket and it's USB so it can be plugged in to a USB car charger to always keep the second set of batteries charged.

I've got a way to install the flashlight holder at the side of the console with no drilling, no adhesive.

If anyone has better ideas about where to mount the flashlight and charger in the Jeep let me know; if your idea is better than mine I'll implement your idea.

 

[jscherb]

The canopy wall set I ordered from Walmart arrived today. Here it is laid out on the floor of a spare room, I'm measuring it to see how it'll turn into a roof top tent changing room.

It's in two pieces, each 10' long. One piece has a zipper in the center to serve as a door. There are zippers on both sides of both panels, so they can zip together into a 5' square, which is slightly larger than the RTT platform footprint.

The walls are 86" tall, which is just more than enough to reach the ground from the bottom of my RTT.

Two things are needed to turn it into the changing room:

1. Sew velcro to enough awning rope to reach around the base of the tent and slide it into the slot in the base of the tent. Since there's no slot at the hinge line of the tent platform, I can attach awning channel to the underside of the tent platform. The awning rope is on the floor towards the back of the photo.

2. Sew velcro all the way around the top of the canopy wall set so the walls can attach to the velcro in step 1. A roll of velcro is also in the photo near the awning rope in the back.

I'm very pleased with this, it's easily convert to a nice changing room. The only very minor thing I don't like is that the door zipper has a single pull tab - I'd rather it have dual pull tabs to make it easier to close the zipper from either the inside or outside. I should be able to swap the single pull for a double pull though.

I'll probably do the sewing this weekend when I install the RTT on the Jeep, photos to come then.

End result should look like this:

 

[jscherb]

This morning I sewed a quick holder for the flashlight I've been testing; it attaches to the roll bar with velcro straps.

I still plan to sew one that holds the flashlight and the charger, I'll probably get to that after I get back to SEMA.

 

[jscherb]

More design details for the roof top tent changing room... when using the room for changing where would you put the clothes you're changing into - on the ground? Seems like some type of shelf or work surface would be a good idea in the changing room, so here's an idea - hanging some shelves from the underside of the tent platform:

There are four good sized compartments in this organizer, plus a closet rod at the bottom for hanging things. Found it at Walmart:

One thing that's nice about it is that it's collapsible, so it would fold up for travel and storage and not take up much space in the Jeep.

It would have to hang from the underside of the tent platform and be removable, but that's pretty simple.

I may add this to my changing room implementation.

Anyone have any better ideas?

 

[Tkhawk]

Looking good. I placed channels in several places around the bottom of my tent and awning. 5 gallon bucket organizers cut in two work well for putting random things in, here I have one for kitchen supplies hanging from my awning. We used a larger closet organizer inside for clothes and other necessities.

 

[jscherb]

Looking good. I placed channels in several places around the bottom of my tent and awning. 5 gallon bucket organizers cut in two work well for putting random things in, here I have one for kitchen supplies hanging from my awning. We used a larger closet organizer inside for clothes and other necessities.

View attachment 546602View attachment 546603

Thanks for posting the pics, it's good to see that someone's thinking along the same lines that I am.

 

[jscherb]

Another adaptation from Ikea...

A few weeks ago I posted some storage ideas based on Ikea products that are under $10 (https://www.expeditionportal.com/fo...factory-hardtops.127687/page-270#post-2674775). Here's another one, this uses their $5 Skadis storage bag: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/skadis-storage-bag-white-gray-20377799/.

This bag comes with a metal frame that keeps the bag top open. I sewed a zipper to the top back of the bag so it attaches to an Overland Outfitters backpack zipper, now it zips onto the seat back:

You don't need an Overland Outfitters zipper to do this, a more simple implementation is to sew a piece of fabric to the back of the back and put two holes in the fabric for the headrest posts to go through.

Here's what I did on the back, you can see the zipper I added, and so the metal legs don't harm the seat upholstery I slid short pieces of rubber hose over them.

Holding a small box of tissues...